


HOTEL SEX

by ivorygates



Series: Hotel Sex [1]
Category: House M.D., Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel goes to a conference.  So does House.</p>
            </blockquote>





	HOTEL SEX

_"Hotel sex is the best kind."  
\--Scarlette Skye_

 

 

Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital is a sprawling semi-Gothic complex located in southern New Jersey. It's not only one of the largest teaching hospitals on the East Coast, it has a world-renowned reputation for excellence. In some quarters, it's known as the court of last resort.  
  
The reason for this, it is rumored, is its Chief of Diagnostic Medicine, Dr. Gregory House.

Unless a patient gets better by themselves -- or dies -- you have to diagnose them to treat them. And all you have to go by is their symptoms, or what the patient says they are.

But people lie. Bodies lie. Even symptoms lie. They can mean everything, or nothing.

Knowing what matters and how to interpret it is where skill becomes art.

Knowing what to focus on in the whole welter of conflicting information, when to keep looking, when to stop looking and follow your instincts … that's where skill and art becomes Greg House.

Who says that everyone lies, and who also says that he is never wrong.

Brilliant. Crazy. It depends on who you ask.

But not a shaman or a magician. It only seems that way. What it is, is Science, the diagnoses and differential analyses that seem to come from nowhere to save lives, that are in reality only the iceberg-tip of years of training and practice, constant study and constant work. Work that doesn't stop with the acquisition of a diploma from Johns Hopkins.

#

Professional conferences are either a perk of the job or a circle of Hell reserved exclusively for doctors. Again, it depends on who you ask.

House hates them. He prefers the world to come to him.

A Symposium on Exotic Diseases? Three Days at the New York Hilton?

He's spent the last six months bargaining with Cuddy. He's offered her Chase, Foreman, and Cameron as sacrificial virgins, three for the price of one, if she'll send them in his place. Suggested Wilson would get more out of it, since after all, cancer patients get other diseases too. Even suggested he couldn't go because it would mean he'd miss his allotted hours at the Clinic, a duty he feels is utterly beneath him and dodges whenever possible.

Cuddy has reminded him he'll only be attending, not presenting. That in the past year Princeton-Plainsboro has seen everything from The Black Death and dengue fever to _mycobacterium marinum_ (Fish Tank Granulomas) and _Sporotrichosis_ (Rose Gardener's Disease) to an actual case of _Aspergillosis_ (not the common _fumigatus_ type either, but the _flavus_ ) – sometimes known as The Curse of King Tut -- and she'd like the Head of Diagnostic Medicine to be prepared with the latest information in the field.

Cuddy points out that he's getting five days away from the Clinic -- the three days of the Symposium plus two days travel time -- extortionate, since Manhattan is only a few hours away -- and the hospital is paying for his room. His add-ons to the room bill are always extortionate, and considering what you can charge to Room Service in Manhattan, she's truly disturbed at the thought of what she'll see when the time comes to review the bill.

She knows that House has no shame at all.

She also knows that he's always had every intention of attending this Symposium. And, equally, every intention of being badgered and bribed into it. Because that is the way House does business with those he considers his peers. Inversely to the way he transacts Life with those he considers his inferiors, when there is also badgering, and no bribery at all.

Thursday afternoon. Allegedly his travel day, but he's at the hospital instead. He regards the Clinic -- absent of his presence -- with blue-eyed malice, breezing by its beckoning doors a dozen times a day just to mock her.

She breathes a sigh of relief at last when she sees him gone.

Friday he is in New York.

#

"Polymorphous Perversity" is one of the older terms for his psychological orientation.

"Too damned friendly" is Jack's description of it.

Daniel's simply never seen any reason to limit his options.

Back in Chicago he was having an affair with Sarah, yes. Brief, high-maintenance, and doomed. And a slightly more complex and long-term connection with David, who'd introduced him to the filthy joys of buggery. Professor Jordan had been the complete Anglophile, from afternoon tea to weekend sherry parties. Daniel was certain he would have introduced caning if he could have gotten the Trustees to go along with it.

It had been a little late to discover his sexual orientation wasn't quite what he thought it was, but he'd been a little late in discovering _sex,_ actually. Mastering twenty-three languages and acquiring a double PhD in linguistics and archaeology before he was thirty -- several years before he was thirty, to tell the truth -- didn't really leave a lot of time for anything else. And being the smart-mouthed obnoxiously bright geek kid that everybody -- including the cheerleaders -- beat up tended to make a guy wary of personal interaction long after the last threatening cheerleader had vanished. He'd never actually dated all that much.

And -- after Chicago -- he'd ended up several dozen light-years from home married to a beautiful girl that he'd bought from her father for a candy bar. More or less. And he'd loved her with all his heart and soul and they'd had a year of joy and then she'd been kidnapped by parasitical space-aliens to become a host. And he'd looked for her for years, slowly losing hope, and trying not to fall in love with his very straight, very male, best friend.

Who turned out not to be all that straight, though still very male.

And who doesn't just have issues, he has a lifetime subscription.

Which is why -- though Daniel loves Jack dearly -- when he comes to places like this, he's more than a little interested in the idea of what David would have referred to as 'a bit on the side.' Just to give himself a breathing space. From Jack. Who is, of course _not_ gay (never mind where he likes to put his cock and his mouth) and psychologically monogamous but not physically so.

Meaning he loves Daniel absolutely and is utterly loyal. Jack would never betray Daniel on any level or in any fashion Jack can imagine. Socially. Professionally. And -- god knows -- he would lay down his life for Daniel any time they go through the Stargate.

Jack would never have sex with another _man._

Which is why, Daniel supposes, that he's here now. Fully intending to have sex with another man if the opportunity presents itself.

It's a Symposium on Exotic Diseases. Three days at the New York Hilton, and he's thinking of staying over an extra day to catch the Hatshepsut Exhibit at the Met. His parents died there, and he supposes he ought to hate the museum, but he actually visits it every chance he can. It's the last place he ever saw them alive, and if he believed in ghosts -- which he doesn't -- theirs would certainly be supposed to haunt the place.

A Symposium on Exotic Diseases would seem to be an odd place to find someone whose field of expertise is the Fertile Crescent cultures of 5000BCE -- and whose actual day job, further, is traveling to alien planets through an alien transportation device called a Stargate, doing everything from delivering babies to fighting off hordes of alien warriors -- but one of the tracks on Saturday is going to be devoted to plagues in antiquity -- the idea being that a number of disease outbreaks are cyclical, and the same ones show up time after time in the same areas, over centuries -- and he's here for that. The evolution of the way cultures here on Earth describe the symptoms of sickness and disease could give them clues to similar material they encounter on the other side of the Stargate.

And besides, sometimes you just need a vacation, even if it is a working vacation.

#

House hates parties, socializing, and stupid people.

There are stupid people in abundance at the Friday night meet and greet that officially opens the Symposium, and the attendees are expected to socialize.

But there is also a lavish buffet and an open bar pouring top-shelf brands.

It doesn't really make up for the presence of idiots, but he can insult the ones he can't ignore.

#

"You're Dr. House, aren't you?"

The speaker is blonde, breathless, pneumatic, and from Roche Pharmaceutical. She's cornered him at the bar.

"No," he says. She's wearing her large plastic ID badge. He isn't wearing his.

"Oh, but I'm sure you are," she says.

"I'm glad one of us is."

He'd leave, but his drink is on its way. Doctors all drink like fish – assuming fish drank -- and even though the room is set up with three bars, they're all crowded.

Someone behind him clears his throat -- a faint stifled sound of amusement. House turns his head to look, shutting out Pusher Barbie.

Tweed jacket. Plaid shirt. Glasses.

His undesired audience reaches toward the barman for his own drink -- red wine -- just as Pusher Barbie reaches out to pluck insistently at House's jacket.

"Dr. House, I just need a minute of your--"

And in a movement so fluid, so perfectly choreographed that it might almost be planned, the man turns, and the entire glass of red, red wine in his hand goes tipping into Barbie's cantilevered cleavage.

"Ooops," Tweed Jacket says quietly.

But he's smiling faintly, and his eyes are fixed on House.

Pusher Barbie squeals in late-breaking dismay. Tweed Jacket's attention shifts to her. House takes his drink and escapes, pivoting on his cane.

The name on the badge was Dr. Daniel Jackson.

#

Inevitably, Dr. Jackson comes looking for him. House has moved over to the buffet. There's shrimp. He has, so far successfully, defended the shrimp bowl from unwanted incursion. Unfortunately, it's impossible to juggle the needs of a drink, a silly little plate, and his cane, so he can either eat or keep moving.

"It really was an accident."

"Well, that's ruined my opinion of you."

"Still, you looked like you needed rescuing back there," Dr. Jackson says, devoting his attention to the shrimp in a way that suggests this isn't his first conference. He's managed to get himself another drink, too.

"Isn't it _nice_ that I had you to rescue me?" House answers spitefully.

Dr. Jackson slants a sideways glance at House. Not as put off as he ought to be.

To be fair, he's not being obvious.

But House certainly knows enough to know when he's being … assessed.

"I thought so," Dr. Jackson answers mildly. "Although you actually missed what I think you would have considered the most entertaining part."

"The part where she realized it would be pointless to ask you out on a date?"

That really ought to be enough to make the man run for cover. But Dr. Jackson actually smiles, as if House has said something amusing. "I imagine she'd be more interested in dating someone she could sell her company's products to."

"Strangely, it says 'Doctor' on your badge."

"Of archaeology."

"Oh. Not a real doctor."

"Not a medical doctor. There are other career choices."

"Not as entertaining."

"You'd be surprised how entertaining archaeology can be."

"I doubt it."

Neurological damage, now, _that's_ interesting.

He wonders precisely how Dr. Jackson has been injured, and when. It _is_ an injury. The way the man moves tells him that. Neurological involvement; he turns his entire head when he wants to focus on something, keeping his neck and spine very still. But it isn't a spinal injury; at other times the man moves perfectly normally. Depth perception, hand-eye coordination, both appear normal. No man could navigate the lavish buffet that the Symposium has laid on without having plenty of both. And he'd certainly baptized Pusher Barbie very deftly.

Not a concussion.

Not a stroke.

Not migraines.

He wears glasses, but the prescription isn't particularly strong.

His color is good. His skin is clear and healthy.

Abruptly House realizes that he's been standing here for nearly five minutes having what might almost be considered a civil conversation with Daniel Jackson. Who is regarding him with a look of wide-eyed interest and who obviously doesn't know a damned thing about medicine.

Or care.

He turns his back and walks away.

#

Well, _that_ had gone well.

Daniel watches Dr. House move away -- back toward the bar -- with more than a little regret.

He's never been attracted to pretty boys.

He'd always liked brilliant men.

David had been brilliant. Jack was, too, in his own way (you didn't get the Asgard to sit up and take notice by being an idiot, no matter how much you might pretend to be one in daily life).

And Dr. House?

Daniel is a people-watcher. It's a survival skill. It always has been -- now, perhaps, even more than in childhood.

Half the people in the room are watching Dr. House. He is, obviously, someone important in this world. Important enough that he doesn't care -- because they're watching him, but he isn't watching them.

And that woman who'd wanted him to do something for her had been very insistent. Almost desperate. Indicating that Dr. House isn't an easily-accessible man.

Daniel has been snarked at by experts on a daily basis for years. His feelings aren't easily hurt, and they aren't hurt now. It is, however, a little disconcerting to have his sexuality brought up in casual conversation so abruptly. He'd been discreet. He knew he had. It's a survival skill for a civilian consultant to a US Military program. Of course the SGC knows he's had male lovers; security reviews and background checks are a fact of life that he's long since accepted as the price of doing what he loves. And the SGC also thinks it's a thing of the past. Everyone knows that Dr. Daniel Jackson lives a life of bookish celibacy. For them to think anything else would be embarrassing for him, but it would send Jack to prison.

So they're careful.

But anything he does here wouldn't reflect on Jack.

He wonders, vaguely, if he'd actually overplayed his hand, or if Dr. House had simply been being randomly abusive.

Hard to decide.

It might be worth trying to run into Dr. House again. At the very least, annoying him could be fun.

Meanwhile Daniel can circulate and find out a few more things about him.

Like his first name.

#

Saturday. Plague in Antiquity. Coffee and Danish, copious technical handouts. He records the presentations, takes extensive notes.

Does a little flirting, opening up options for this evening.

Dr. House's first name is Greg. Or Gregory. Graduated from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. House is head of Diagnostic Medicine at some hospital in New Jersey. Daniel isn't sure he believes half the things he's been told. If they were true, surely the man would be in prison. He's fairly sure doctors aren't supposed to lie to patients. Kidnap them. Hit them. Blackmail them.

At least Dr. House is still working in the field he originally trained for.

Daniel envies him that.

#

He's standing in the hallway at the end of the last lecture, talking to a group of people. One of them is his target for tonight. A distant second best; a specialist in Historical Medicine from California. But compelling enough, in a Viking fashion. PhD to go along with the medical degree. They'll have things to talk about for as long as Daniel feels like talking. If the evening goes as he hopes.

He sees Dr. House coming down the hallway.

Everyone else here is in suits, neatly coiffed and barbered. Dr. House is -- still -- unshaven and disheveled. His jacket is rumpled, his shirt, though clean, looks like it was wadded into a ball before it was stuffed into its suitcase. It's only half-buttoned. The t-shirt beneath it is black with a logo Daniel can't quite make out. He leans heavily on his cane.

When he sees Daniel he glares, as if Daniel is a personal enemy.

But he stops.

"Dinner," he says.

Not a question. More of a command.

"I--"

The last thing he expected, after last night.

"You're paying."

"Fine."

Daniel turns away from the others with a faint wave of apology, and follows Dr. House.

#

There are plenty of cabs right outside the hotel. Dr. House grabs the first empty one, though a doorman was holding it for someone else. For someone who walks with a cane, Dr. House moves surprisingly quickly.

"Sorry," Daniel says to the waiting stranger, diving into the cab after Dr. House.

"Do you--" he begins. _Do that often?_ he'd been going to ask. But Dr. House is ignoring him, giving directions to the driver.

#

There's no conversation in the cab, but the ride is short. Dr. House is staring out the window, apparently pretending he's alone here.

Daniel wonders why they're both here. The evening should at least be interesting. If it's in a platonic way, there's still Sunday. If it's platonic and ends early, he should still be able to find the Viking later.

It would, of course, be nice if this weren't platonic, but he's making no guesses. He was invited -- or to be accurate, commanded -- to dinner and he's not sure why.

He doubts it's just because Dr. House was hungry.

#

The cab pulls up in front of someplace called Ben Benson's. A steakhouse. Not the sort of place Daniel would have chosen. House gets out of the cab and heads for the door -- still without speaking -- leaving Daniel to pay for the cab.

#

It's Friday night, and there's an hour's wait for a table.

"If you bribe the maitre'd, we could be seated faster," Dr. House announces, regarding the waiting patrons without favor.

"Do you think so?" Daniel asks. Although he knows it's very likely.

"I'm hungry and I want to sit down," Dr. House announces, with all the tact of a two year old. He flourishes his cane meaningfully, glaring.

"How much do you think it will take?"

"Give me your wallet."

Daniel has no intention of handing over his wallet. Partly, he isn't sure he'll get it back. Partly, his Cheyenne Mountain ID is in there, and though it's easily explained -- cryptographic analysis of Deep Space Telemetry signals -- he doesn't like explaining it.

But abruptly he finds himself wrestling with his dinner companion for possession of it, as Dr. House has simply dived into his jacket pocket and removed it, with as little concern as if Daniel were an empty suit of clothes. He has both hands around Dr. House's wrist, and they aren't playing at all. The man's grip is very strong.

He gets the wallet back, but its contents, his remaining cash, appears between Dr. House's first two fingers as if by a magician's conjuring trick.

"I'll be right back," Dr. House says, flourishing the money.

Ten minutes later, they're seated.

#

The place is crowded, but they've got a good table. If there was any money left over from the bribe that got them in here ahead of everyone else, Dr. House doesn't offer to return it, but Daniel's expecting that by now.

They said Dr. House was eccentric.

If he acts this way back in New Jersey, he must be extremely good at what he does.

The prices on the menu are stunning. Fortunately Daniel's AmEx is paid up. And he has no doubt that the food is excellent. He's also pretty sure that Dr. House is about to order the most expensive thing on the menu.

A server comes for their drink orders. Dr. House is a bourbon drinker. He questions the man about brands before settling on something called Booker's Beam. Daniel glances at the spirits list and confirms his suspicion. He orders a glass of the house white, and the server leaves.

"You could have just asked him what was most expensive."

Dr. House favors him with a faint look of shock. "That sounds so mercenary."

"Well, you're going to have to pay for the cab back. I don't have any more cash."

"I hear they take credit cards now."

Daniel sighs, and considers walking back to the hotel. Now. It's a nice night. And it's really not that far. He likes to walk.

But there's an ATM on the corner -- he saw it on the way in -- and he can get more cash if he really needs to. Besides, he isn't quite sure -- yet -- whether he's here because Dr. House thinks that he, Daniel, is so desperate to get Dr. Gregory House between the sheets that he'll put up with this level of abuse through dinner…

Or whether this is some sort of bizarre flirtation.

"How are you enjoying the conference?" he asks.

"I'm not," Dr. House says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bottle. Shakes a couple of pills into his hand and pops them into his mouth. Chews them, making Daniel wince slightly, imagining the bitterness of the taste. He wonders what they are.

"Then why are you here?" he asks, surprised. In his world -- the world he lost -- academic conferences are a jealously-sought-after perk. Something everybody wants to attend.

His last one was a disaster.

"I was blackmailed by a beautiful woman with no morals."

"Well, that's … interesting."

"She wants me to sleep with her. She's fixated on my cane."

"Is she?" Daniel asks, fascinated.

"She says it's the largest one she's ever seen. She's a doctor. She's seen a lot of canes."

Their drinks arrive, rescuing Daniel from the sudden image inside his mind.

#

Pretty boys usually know they're pretty. Chase does. Chase relies on it. As if prettiness can substitute for being right. Chase believes that comeliness will protect him from needing to make hard decisions, since no one could bear to be harsh with such flawless surfer-god loveliness. Just the opposite of Cameron. Cameron wears her beauty like iron chains, as if it were an evil fairy's curse laid on her in childhood that she hasn't found any way to break.

Daniel Jackson. Lovely in the way the Greeks used to drivel on about. A decade or so ago he must have stopped people -- gay, straight, and undecided -- in their tracks. It's beyond belief that nobody's ever brought it to his attention. He doesn't seem to notice, though, or to be perfectly precise, he doesn't care, and that's interesting.

Dr. Jackson will repay further study.

Right now he's studying the menu as if entrees will protect him from double entendres. It does, however, leave House a clear field for his own study.

Eyes are tracking well. The restaurant is dim, and the menu print is fashionably small, but he doesn't hold the menu at an angle that suggests compensation for double vision. And he isn't frowning, so his prescription is current. There's the same unnatural stillness in the neck and spine that House noted before, though; he needs to hold very still in order to focus. If he does move, there will be visual distortion. Not enough to interfere when he walks or handles objects, so it doesn't severely impede depth-of-field relationships. But if Dr. Jackson wants to read small print in a dim room, he has to hold very still.

What causes that sort of neurological damage?

"How long have you suffered from headaches?"

There's a pause, and House can practically feel the moment when the well-practiced cover story is readied for yet another outing.

"Eyestrain is pretty much a job hazard for archaeologists. Old books. Bad light. Or too much light. I thought doctors didn't like to talk about medicine on their off hours?"

Most people, offered the chance to go on about their boring and trivial medical problems, would still be talking. Headaches are usually good for at least ten minutes and a life history.

Not a not-quite-lie and a quick change of subject.

"They don't like to be asked for free medical advice."

"I can't actually imagine anyone asking you for anything."

House smiles. "Then you suffer from a profound lack of imagination."

Dr. Jackson smiles back, as if House has said something amusing but far too personal, and closes his menu decisively.

"I suppose you've already made up your mind."

#

The hovering waiter pounces, and their orders are collected.

"So why are you here?" House asks. He wants to see what Dr. Jackson will say. There are a lot of ways you could take that question.

"Plague," he answers. He was watching the waiter, looking puzzled. When House speaks, his attention returns. "Plague in antiquity. It's fascinating, really," he adds, challengingly.

"A bit over your head?"

"Which is why I came, of course. To spend a weekend in New York feeling like an idiot."

"Maybe."

His own attention is distracted, just for a moment, by a scrap of a familiar foreign language behind him. Two of the busboys are clearing a table, chattering softly to each other in Hindi, and House turns his head to listen. Odd for Hindus to be working in a steakhouse, but this is New York, capital city of the peculiar. One says to the other that if Americans will eat beef, they'll obviously eat anything. His companion's response is heart-stoppingly scatological, and House makes a mental note not to order dessert.

A stifled choke draws his attention back to his dinner companion.

Dr. Jackson is looking toward the two busboys. "I don't think I'm going to order the 'Death by Chocolate' now," he says. His eyes glitter with laughter.

House isn't sure whether to feel amused or irritated.

"They were speaking Hindi," he says.

"I know. _You_ understood them."

House waves this aside. "So… not just another pretty face. You can probably even read the footnotes in the academic journals without moving your lips. What about them?" He gestures.

At the table next to them, two German tourists are arguing -- with each other, in German -- about the bill. They both think it's far too high. One also feels the quality of the food was inferior to what they would have gotten back home.

"They think they're being overcharged. The blond thinks the food wasn't very good, either."

"Good guess," House says.

_"Ich schätzte nicht. Ich muß nicht in irgendwelchen von dreiundzwanzig Sprachen schätzen."_

_I wasn't guessing. I don't have to guess in any of twenty-three languages._

For once, Dr. Jackson actually sounds irritated, and House is pleased.

#

"So what is it you _do?"_

They've been working their way through the meal -- appetizers, salad, and entrée. Dr. Jackson has ordered fish. House is having the double filet mignon.

If Dr. Jackson were his patient, he'd expect the lies and evasions and simple wrong answers. Everybody lies, especially to him. Even more so when they're sick and frightened and lying in a hospital bed.

He's not sure why an archaeologist would want to lie about what he does for a living. Or… not quite lie. Just dance around the truth. Which is also interesting, as the last person who didn't want to answer House's questions about his day job was a Mafia wiseguy. And he's pretty sure there aren't any archaeologists in the Mafia.

Which means that whatever Dr. Jackson does is either secret or illegal. And since people engaged in illegal activities rarely attend medical symposiums, that leaves secret. Or at least highly embarrassing.

"Someone at the conference told me you're a… medical diagnostician?"

"Don't change the subject. I know what I do for a living. I find out things about people."

"I'm a linguist."

Once again, it sounds like an answer, and it isn't. Dr. Jackson stonewalls so well he must have a lot of practice at it, which only makes House wonder why.

"A cunning one, I hope."

Dr. Jackson gives him a sardonic grin. "It wouldn't matter in this company, would it? I have a degree in Linguistics. I work for the government, doing cryptographic analysis."

"On?"

"A variety of things."

"Like antique plagues?"

"Sometimes. How do you diagnose an illness?"

A very abrupt change of subject, but House has spent the last hour doing his best to verbally back the man into a corner. He hasn't gotten any of the usual responses, either. Not flight, not abuse. Apparently interrogation is a fact of life in Dr. Jackson's little world. He's so used to it he barely notices it.

And he's also used to hedging around the truth.

"By asking questions."

"Medicine hasn't advanced much from the time of Galen, then."

What's even more interesting than the fact that Dr. Jackson hasn't given him a straight answer to a single question is seeing how far he can push before his dinner date decides to push back.

"Do you want me to say that we save more lives than some ancient Greek witchdoctor ever did? I love mankind. I'm a doctor."

Dr. Jackson opens his mouth and closes it again. "I'm not sure I know you well enough to insult you properly," he says at last.

"Try," House says.

Dr. Jackson blinks slowly, and House feels a thrill of interest, because the fencing is over -- or at least an intermission has been declared.

"You might love mankind," he says seriously. "I can't say. I've known people who sincerely believed that they did, and were willing to kill thousands of human beings to prove their point. I'm pretty sure, though, that you don't like _people_. If you did--"

"Time to go," House says, getting to his feet. "Check."

#

Dinner for two, with drinks and appetizers, comes to almost three hundred dollars.

Daniel goes to the ATM to get cash for the taxi back.

He's almost certain that Dr. House will be gone by the time he comes back. He's pretty sure that last comment he made was too close to the bone. But he's afraid that – in a way – he already knows Dr. Gregory House far too well.

Brilliant, beautiful, and damaged.

He wonders where the damage lies. Not in the ruined leg. That's much too simple. Probably in the brilliance. There's a special hell on Earth reserved for those who don't see the world the way their so-called peers do. Daniel knows it well. That fatal trick of perception would account for all the rest, and whatever happened to his leg is just _lagniappe._ An excuse, and a restful one, for the constant abuse and rejection the world deals out to anything it doesn't understand.

Unfortunately, Daniel has spent years mapping the corridors of that particular Labyrinth. The defense mechanisms entertain, but maybe they don't work quite as well as they should.

Leaving the Minotaur visible. Too easy to be dazzled by, and god help anyone who loves Greg House. There's a special hell reserved for them, too.

Just as well he'll be gone, soon.

Just as well he's already given his heart.

#

When he gets back to the middle of the block, though, Dr. House is standing there. Waiting. Drumming his cane on the sidewalk impatiently.

"Get us a cab," he says.

#

Dr. House seems distracted on the ride back, fiddling with his cane and humming under his breath, as if he wishes he were somewhere else. Daniel wonders why -- in that case -- he waited for him. Surely he's counted coup enough for one night?

But when they get back to the hotel, instead of the abrupt dismissal Daniel expects, Dr. House simply tells him to 'come on', and then they're standing in the elevator.

The elevator is crowded. The after-hours parties are starting. Both of them get invitations to attend several. Dr. House simply seems not to hear -- an amazing trick, this selective deafness. Daniel, helplessly polite, says that perhaps he'll look in later. When the doors open at House's floor, Dr. House shoves his way out of the elevator without a word, forcing Daniel to scramble – once again -- to follow.

"You could run along, you know," Dr. House says, when they're in the hall. Offering to dismiss Daniel as if he were an errant child.

"Didn't you invite me back to your room?" Daniel replies. Though he's half-expecting, at this point, to get the door slammed in his face when he arrives.

Dr. House makes a face as if he's in pain -- or past the limits of a patience Daniel hasn't seen displayed yet -- and doesn't reply.

#

They reach the door, and to Daniel's surprise, the door isn't slammed in his face. He walks inside.

Still not sure how far he's going to get. He knows that Dr. House knows what Daniel wants from him, and he hasn't been shut down, told off, politely discouraged.

He's not sure Dr. House knows the meaning of the word 'polite', actually. But the point is, to cut to the chase, that as far as he can tell, he's been led on.

Or encouraged.

The room is a mess.

"Well, is it everything you hoped it would be?" Dr. House asks, gesturing around.

"Not yet," Daniel answers, because at this point, if this is going nowhere, if he's misread these so-very-mixed signals, he needs to know.

"The night is young," Dr. House says.

He's smiling, but it's neither pleased nor welcoming.

Daniel thinks again of the Minotaur.

"Drink?" Dr. House asks.

There's a bottle of bourbon on the bedside table.

"No, thank you," Daniel says politely. Bourbon really isn't his drink. Scotch on occasion, but his true secret vice is brandy.

And impossible men.

"Sex?"

"What?"

"You didn't come up here to look at my etchings."

Dr. House is standing with one hand on his cane, the other in his jacket pocket, rattling the pill-bottle like a maraca.

"Or to be made a fool of."

Dr. House looks pleased. He does that, Daniel has come to realize, when someone matches him rudeness for rudeness.

Easier that way. Abuse as verbal armor. Daniel learned that trick from Jack, years ago.

"Well, normally I'd hire a hooker, but Cuddy's been bitching about my expense reports. Are you any good?"

"Why don't you decide for yourself?"

Dr. House grunts in agreement, nodding. He takes off his jacket, tossing it on one of the chairs. His shirt follows, revealing the black t-shirt completely for the first time. It says 'Ramones' over a picture of what is obviously a rock band of some sort.

"'Hey, ho, let's go,'" Dr. House says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and regarding Daniel with bright-eyed interest.

Daniel stares back blankly. Obviously a quotation of some kind, but he can't place it.

"Not a music fan?"

Dr. House palmed the bottle of pills before he removed the jacket. Now he sets it carefully beside the bottle of bourbon and begins to remove his sneakers. They're garish; black and orange and very high-tech.

"Not, um, modern music."

Daniel stands watching Dr. House undress. He wonders if the man intends to strip completely naked right now, and what he'll do next.

He feels his cock twitch in anticipation, growing hard at the thought. Guilt has always been a turn-on in his fucked-up world; he knows he shouldn't be here.

"Philistine."

"Not my field." It's a joke, but he's not sure Dr. House gets it. Then again, he's not sure he doesn't.

"You could do better," Dr. House tells him, pausing with his hands on his belt. He's already kicked off his sneakers and socks. "That blond nancy-boy you were talking to in the hall. He'd even have paid for your dinner."

It takes Daniel a minute to track back. His eyes are on Dr. House's hands, thinking that the pants will be off in a minute, and this is going damned fast, but they've already had the foreplay, haven't they?

He licks his lips.

The blond. The Viking. "Dr. Meredith," he says. He shakes his head. He'd rather be here, watching this clinical strip-tease, a divestiture of clothing not meant to arouse, but to alarm.

"Much prettier." Dr. House stops. The belt is open, and so's the fly. He's still soft, but Daniel can take care of that, if he'll let him.

But it almost sounds as if Dr. House is trying to talk him out of this. Which is just weird, since he's sitting on the bed undressing.

"I don't like pretty men."

"You prefer freaks."

Daniel wonders if that's actually how Dr. House sees himself.

"I could tell you the truth, but we'd just fight. That's fun, but right now I'm interested in something else."

"Then don't you think you should take your clothes off?"

Another order. Daniel turns away and starts to undress.

#

He knows he's got a good body. It's actually a job requirement. Being able to hike for miles with a full pack -- and then run for your life when the mission turns bad. The days of being the skinny geek that all the jocks pretended to mistake for a girl are long behind him. He piles his clothes carefully on the other chair. If Dr. House has any interest at all in the male body, he knows he's giving him a good show.

He reaches down to clasp himself briefly, closing his eyes in pleasure. On display in a strange man's hotel room. Secrets. Betrayal of the man who loves him enough to risk everything for him. He wants it all.

He turns back.

Dr. House is sitting naked on the bed. He's leaning back, braced on his hands, knees spread.

Long lean rangy body. Muscular chest, nicely furred. Daniel wants to pillow his face against it to test the texture of both hair and muscle, and knows he won't get the chance. Unfortunate. Not his to hold. His, barely, to touch.

Yes, quite a nice cane. He wonders if Dr. Cuddy -- whoever she is -- is actually interested, or if that's only another of Dr. House's outrageous lies. Flushed and starting to thicken, so at least the sight of Daniel doesn't revolt him, which is reassuring.

"Like what you see?" Dr. House snarls. As if Daniel shouldn't.

But then he sees the scar.

It covers most of the outside of Dr. House's right leg. 'Covers' isn't the right word. The leg looks as if somebody took a large knife and simply sliced away most of the muscle. The flesh there is slick and hairless, furrowed like an aerial view of a river valley. At the center is a line of red.

It explains the cane.

It explains a lot.

And if he chooses his next words carefully, they also come easily, as if without thought, because so many times his words have been all that stood between SG-1 -- or Earth -- and annihilation.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm completely familiar with handicapped-accessible sex. If I weren't, I'd never get, ah…"

"Laid?"

"I was going to say, anywhere in bed."

Bad knees, bad back; the years and the battles have left Jack's body neither particularly pretty nor particularly sound. Someday the failures of the flesh will cost them all.

He walks forward then, closing the distance between himself and Dr. House. This is going to happen. He knows it. He's passed the last test.

No pity. No shame.

"So, the little woman make a habit of walking into doors?"

#

Dr. Jackson smiles at him enchantingly, in a fashion that doesn't encourage thought, let alone conversation.

"You really want to die a virgin, don't you?"

House has been immune to such distractions for a very long time.

"As they say, that is a very old t-shirt."

Dr. Jackson kneels down then -- House admires his suppleness even as he envies it. A little tightness in the lower back, but nothing more than can be accounted for by a day of standing around on hard hotel floors and the rosy crucifixion of conference room chairs.

"Should I say I'll be gentle?" Dr. Jackson asks mockingly, gazing up at him through lowered lashes.

"What would little Mrs. Jackson say?"

"He'd consider twisting somebody's head off and feeding it to them. Probably mine."

"Short leash, dear?"

"It's not the sex as much as the talking."

"Maybe you should consider stopping."

Dr. Jackson leans forward. House can feel the man's breath against the inside of his knee. And it really doesn't matter. Man, woman, mutant sheep. He feels a surge of interest. The brute beast demanding its due.

"I was thinking more of demonstrating competence in my field. A non-invasive site survey," Dr. Jackson says, and his voice is slow and husky, "Marking points of particular interest for later analysis."

His hands are resting on his knees. He's fully erect. Doing nothing to conceal the fact. Flattering, because the male body is pathetically honest about its interests. He hasn't moved again.

"Are you saying I'm an ancient relic?" House does his best to sound indignant.

"Venerable."

There's laughter in Dr. Jackson's voice, and now he puts his mouth on the inside of House's thigh, biting ungently and wetly.

Long-traumatized nerves refer the sensation as hot and cold and pleasure and pain all at once, shooting heat and cold up and down the nerves of the damaged leg. House grunts in displeasure at the betrayal of the flesh. He hears Dr. Jackson chuckle softly, as if a theory has just been proved, and dammit, he hates being a subject, being under observation, and reaches out to push Dr. Jackson away from him, feeling the slip of the sweat-cooled marmoreal -- now _there's_ a word you don't get to use every day -- skin against his hands as Dr. Jackson surges forward instead, sucking him in and swallowing him down.

The pleasure is nearly unmixed with pain.

#

Sandalwood.

He brings his hands up to brace himself, the right one high on the hipbone, far from the scarred flesh, the left one planted firmly in the middle of the thigh, feeling the jump and twitch of heavy muscle. He strokes firmly with his thumb, sucking at the same time, and feels the cock in his mouth come completely erect, all velvet and pulse.

This is good.

He breathes in the scent of sandalwood and moist musky flesh. Pulls back to lick and hears the ragged intake of breath. Wetness and need and hunger. Everyone needs this, even if they don't want it.

He wants it.

His thighs clench as he braces himself, finding his rhythm. He's so hard it's an insistent distraction, and he starts to lift his right hand away from Dr. House's hip.

"Ah-ah."

His wrist is grabbed in the same hard clasp he remembers from the restaurant. The message is clear. He is not going to be allowed to touch himself.

They're still playing games.

The perversity of it makes him groan, grinding his thighs together and rocking forward in a useless quest for relief. Above him, he hears Dr. House chuckle -- a little breathless, and he's glad of that; he intends to make the man lose his mind before he's through. He pulls back -- he's been left that much freedom -- running his tongue from base to tip and sucking hard upon the cockhead. Teeth. Just a little.

He hears a gasping groan from above him and smiles inside.

His wrist is pinned to Dr. House's thigh with bruising force.

Then he takes a deep breath and goes down, down, all the way down, down into the darkness of the Labyrinth.

#

They usually grab his head when they're close. Dr. House grabs his shoulder, though hard enough to bruise. He growls when he comes, a strangled scream, as if he doesn't want to make any sound at all but can't quite keep silent.

The cock in Daniel's mouth, down his throat, swells further, vibrating.

Wetness.

Daniel swallows it all. The taste, the scent, the sound, is almost enough to put him over the edge.

Almost.

He sits back -- he's been released -- daring, as he does, to kiss the inside of the thigh beside his face. Any gentleness will have to be quick and seem accidental. But he wants to do it.

Because it's dangerous.

He looks up.

Dr. House's eyes are closed. He's breathing hard, leaning back on his hands again, and for a moment he looks as peaceful as Daniel suspects he ever gets. Then the blue eyes snap open once more.

"Up," he barks.

Daniel is already up -- achingly so -- but he climbs up onto the bed. He isn't quite sure what position to assume. He settles for sitting down next to Dr. House, but that's not quite how Dr. House wants him. Daniel ends up half turned, one foot up on the bed, the other on the floor, leaning back on his hands. It only takes a moment.

Then Dr. House leans forward and closes his hand around Daniel's cock. Squeezes it once -- as if to test for freshness -- and begins to pump it slowly up and down.

Suddenly Daniel can't breathe.

"So tell me about your injury."

 _Surgeon's fingers,_ Daniel thinks, slightly dazed, of the hand clasping him with such expert intimate knowledge. That the man wants to talk is a plus, even if it's about something Daniel has no intention of talking about.

"What injury?"

He was ribboned again a few days before the Symposium. He's lost count of how many times that's happened by now. But the doctors at the SGC certified him safe to travel, and the last of the effects should pass in a few days.

"Lying's always fun. Hard to hide the fact that you've been neurologically compromised, though."

Not the strangest conversation he's ever had during sex, but if it goes on much longer, it may make the top ten.

"You're not the first person to tell me that," he answers breathlessly.

It's hard to think at all, and he really doesn't want to, and he knows Dr. House is counting on that.

He bites his lip to stifle the groans.

"And it's really interesting that you aren't at all worried about it."

He opens his mouth to reply -- hard to concentrate on a really good cover story, given what's being done to him. But suddenly it becomes impossible, as the second hand, the one he hadn't been paying attention to, breeches him with clinical expertise, and for a moment he can neither think nor speak. He hears himself moan, a high thin pleading sound, as his hips rock forward.

"So I'm assuming this is something that's happened to you before."

"I, uh, …what?" he gasps. Knowing he's floundering.

"Try to keep up," Dr. House tells him, and for the first time Daniel feels that he's really lost control of the situation. It's oddly exciting.

"I'm not going to tell you," he gasps. And how many times has he said that?

Though, granted, rarely in quite this sort of situation.

"I love a challenge to my professional competence."

And the hands on him -- _in_ him -- flex and curl.

And his consent, his cooperation, is not required.

#

He cries out as he climaxes, body shaking. The little death. Though true death -- he's in a position to know absolutely -- is nothing like this.

The clever hands release him. He curls on his side, knees drawn up into his chest, panting.

In a few moments he'll move, make his excuses, leave.

He's gotten what he came for, after all.

Much more than he expected.

#

But he should know, should have realized by now, that Dr. House would have his own agenda.

"You aren't happy."

Dr. House says this quite casually. And, further, as if he neither cares, nor takes the least interest. As if he's discovered an exciting new symptom.

He sounds a little like Sam, hot on the trail of a new puzzle.

He knows by now that Dr. House is a diagnostician. Someone who takes a collection of symptoms and comes up with a disease to match. Not unlike what he and Sam do in their respective fields. A collection of clues, a leap of --faith? --intuition? --genius? Followed by an answer, and disbelief from everyone who couldn't see what was right in front of them.

Not something he's unfamiliar with, in his own life.

"I've never been happy," Daniel answers, rolling onto his back. It's both true and not true. He's been happy, but by now he knows that happiness is both conditional and transitory.

Right now his body, satiated, is relaxing, winding down. His mind, deliciously giddy with the comfortable absolution of guilt and the challenge presented by his companion, is spinning faster. Back to its usual resting speed.

"My heart bleeds for you," Dr. House says. "Now, about this injury."

Daniel sighs. "I _can't_ tell you."

"Oh, just the good bits."

"I'm not going to tell you," Daniel sing-songs softly.

This is what Dr. House was after all along, he realizes. Not sex. Or not _just_ sex. Answers.

"Oh, let me guess."

"If you do, don't tell me."

Because if he does guess -- not that he possibly can, but if he does -- Daniel will have to tell the people at the SGC whose business it is to worry about such things that yet another outsider knows something they oughtn't. And that could become more awkward than simply another leak in the Stargate Program's already-leaky cover story.

Because people will need to know how and when and where Dr. House guessed.

"Military program, is it?" Dr. House says, and Daniel sits up so fast he falls off the bed.

#

Dr. Jackson gets to his feet. He looks dazed by more than the aftermath of a spectacularly good handjob. House tosses the t-shirt he wiped his hands on past Dr. Jackson's shoulder, and the man doesn't even notice.

"I should go."

"Don't leave on my account."

"You just want me to stick around so you can keep trying to diagnose me."

"Busted," House says, without the faintest semblance of remorse.

"You'll never manage."

"Is that a challenge?"

"A fact."

#

Daniel goes into the bathroom and washes up. Comes back and gets dressed. There's as much pleasure to be taken from the sparring as the sex. At least partly because of the danger. Implicit more than real. He's unlikely to be beaten up, tortured, or jailed, after all, and whatever happens, Earth is perfectly safe. But he supposes, after all these years, that he's become at least a little jaded. There has to be at least some illusion of adversarial contact to keep even quasi-adultery interesting.

It's disturbing and a little sad to realize that about himself.

He supposes this is what passes for afterglow. What else are they going to do? Cuddle?

"Drink?" Dr. House offers again, when he returns, motioning to the bottle of bourbon on the table. He's put his pants on again and pulled on his shirt, but it's unbuttoned.

"I'm much too cheap a drunk for that to be worthy of you," Daniel answers, shaking his head. He knows that Dr. House still wants answers. He knows he doesn't intend to give them.

"Then I won't offer you one of these."

The prescription bottle is on the bedside table. Daniel didn't have his glasses on before and couldn't read it. Dr. House pops it open and shakes out another set of pills, chewing them. Daniel wonders why he doesn't just swallow them.

"And now you can pour me a drink. There's ice in the bucket."

So Daniel does -- bringing over the ice and the glass and even pouring the drink -- and when he has, he takes advantage of the other amenities of the hotel room and brews himself coffee, even though he's leaving, means to leave, ought to leave right now. It means there won't be any coffee here in the morning, but, then, _he_ won't be here in the morning, and a man who takes two Vicodin with a bourbon chaser (he read the bottle this time) probably isn't too worried about his morning coffee.

Janet prescribed him Vicodin once. He became utterly convinced that the language of Medicine was Greek and he had to teach it to the medical staff immediately. At least for the twenty minutes or so he was awake.

He has no drug tolerance at all.

"So tell me all about yourself, Dr. Jackson."

They played this game all through dinner, but the stakes are higher now. Or perhaps their relationship has moved to a new level.

Daniel gazes at House through his lashes, allowing himself to smile; he's sitting in the chair across the room, cradling his coffee cup -- no milk, four sugars -- in his hands. He's vamping openly now. Why not? Those cards are all on the table and he figures it might be annoying enough to serve as a distraction.

"Dionysus -- did you know? -- was incubated in the thigh of Zeus. He's the Greek god of madness. Wine. Drugs. And, of course, drama."

Zeus the Thunderer. Dr. House could easily play that role, and probably does, back home. The question is, will a reference, however oblique, to his injury make Dr. House throw Daniel out of his room, or does he want his answers enough to keep playing games?

Daniel, unfortunately, enjoys playing games.

Jack calls it 'snake-baiting.'

#

"Oh, dear god, you're breaking my heart. And here I left my wand and tiara at home. They're so hard to pack."

He's got just about enough to go on now.

Works for the military.

Has a jealous boyfriend.

No wonder he doesn't want to talk about his job.

The military does a lot of odd things.

Excellent stonewalling techniques, though. He'll have to give young Indiana Jones points. And falling off the bed was a stroke of genius. Of course, banging the Military Industrial Complex is probably hard on the nerves.

But he's seen him walk. He's seen him strip and dress again. Handle the bourbon bottle and hand him the glass. Navigate a hotel room -- with its usual counter-intuitive layout. Watched him make coffee. And, of course, the body's reaction at the moment of orgasm is telling.

"When Dionysus was ready to be born, Zeus took a knife and cut him from his thigh. That's what the myth says. Of course, in many ancient texts, 'thigh' is used as a synonym for 'penis.'"

"Then that must have hurt like a bastard. But we're talking about your neurological damage, not my complete absence of all human feelings. You see, at some point in the recent past, you've been exposed -- and not for the first time -- to targeted pulses of Very Low Frequency Radiation. It has a number of curious and entertaining effects on the human body, among them seriously depleting the amount of serotonin in the brain. Other symptoms may include mild vertigo, low level visual hallucinations, a mild temporary impairment of depth perception, and muscle spasms. As you undoubtedly know, symptoms will fade in a week to ten days, but repeated exposure can lead to permanent brain damage. You'd be better off sticking your head in a microwave."

"Sometimes I think so," Dr. Jackson says, after a long pause. "But I don't really have that choice."

House smiles. "And now you're going to tell me that the government is performing secret experiments on you at Area 51."

Dr. Jackson smiles back, and for a moment, the expression is equally malicious. "No, actually, I was going to tell you that I don't really remember anything after the bright light and the part where the aliens kidnapped me and dragged me into their spaceship."

He gets to his feet, setting down his coffee cup. "Thank you for a very pleasant consultation, Doctor."

"I like to think of myself as a hands-on kind of guy."

"Your patients must be dazzled."

"Usually ungrateful."

Dr. Jackson smiles again, but this time the expression is absent. He's gone away, back into his own head, a place House finds it unusually difficult to follow. Dr. Jackson walks to the door, and flips back the security bar. Another moment and the door is open. He's gone.

House reaches for his cane and levers himself to his feet. He swings over to the door -- sex, drugs, and bourbon have taken the edge off nicely, thank you -- and locks things up again. Comes back and locates the television remote. One of the nice things about medical conferences is charging Pay-Per-View porn to the hospital. Maybe there will be something with nurses in latex.

His diagnosis is correct, of course. He's never wrong. But he's still annoyed. And the thing that annoys House the most is that, just at the very end, he's certain that Dr. Jackson wasn't lying at all.

That he was, just for a few moments, telling the complete truth.

#

Games are fun, especially when they're dangerous.

He never used to think so. The years have changed him.

But there's a time to stop playing.

Maybe someday he'll figure out just when that is. And quit while he's ahead.

That diagnosis was close to the truth. Much too close for comfort. Far enough away, though, that he can -- barely -- justify not reporting it.

He doesn't think Dr. House would get on well with the U.S. Military.

But suddenly the dancing on knives that was so much fun only a little while ago has left him feeling faintly disgusted.

With himself.

With what he's become.

With what the world, the years, have made of him.

He wants to go home.

Now.

Tonight.

Back to the man who loves him and fucks him and fucks him over.

And doesn't understand him at all.

#

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time I told someone about the shocking similarities between Daniel Jackson and Greg House. This led to blowjobs.


End file.
